


BSOD

by cuddlingqueen



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bombs, F/M, Fire, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 22:13:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3545636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuddlingqueen/pseuds/cuddlingqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Boomerang blows up the lab.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This idea popped up in my head, and I’m not sure if it’s really angst, but… it’s definitely heavy. Angst with a Happy Ending, requested by anonymous.

Captain Boomerang was back in town.

According to Lyla, he had escaped in the middle of an ARGUS mission and was determined to finish what he started. If he couldn’t have Starling City, then the next best city would have to do.

And this time, he wasn’t kind enough to put a timer on the bombs.

He detonated them on their front doorstep.

* * *

“Caitlin? …Cisco?” Barry coughed out the names as fast as he could. “Dr. Wells?”

He could barely see through the thick black smoke. Beams had fallen from the ceiling and were blocking his path. He hadn’t been hit, thankfully. He crouched down low, and stumbled through the lab looking for his colleagues. He finally saw a shadow. _Cisco._

He was on the floor, leaning against the desk.

“Are you okay?” Cisco saw Barry mouth the words, but the fire sucked out the sound. He nodded his head. He helped Cisco up, and it was then that Barry saw the gash on his head. He must’ve hit his head on the desk when he fell.

“We should find the others!”

Cisco took a few steps forward, but his feet went in opposite directions. Barry knew he wasn’t up to this. He probably had a concussion. Barry stopped him and put an arm around him.

“Not you.”

Cisco started to protest, but he had no choice in the matter. Barry led him towards the exit.

“I’m fine! I can make it out from here. Go help the others.” Cisco had shouted the words, but to Barry it sounded like a whisper. Barry wasn’t sure his friend _could_ make it out. Cisco was leaning on him pretty heavily. But there was no time to argue; Barry nodded. Cisco would have to walk out of the building on his own. The others might have it worse.

He went back into the burning lab. The ceiling started to creek above him. He needed to get them out, and quickly. His lungs burned with each breath he took. It felt like there was a brick laying on his chest. Another figure was suddenly rushing towards him. _Dr. Wells_.

_And he was standing._

Barry stared in disbelief. “How are you…?!”

Dr. Wells put his hands on Barry’s shoulders.

“Barry! Listen to me! You can’t use your speed. If you do, the oxygen could feed the fire. You can’t use your powers!”

Barry was still trying to get over the fact that Dr. Wells was standing.

“Barry, we need to find Caitlin!”

He snapped back into focus. But one glance at Dr. Wells told him that he was already suffering from smoke inhalation. There was black soot covering the white sleeve that he was hacking into. Even if Barry couldn’t use his speed, his metabolism certainly allowed him to keep up with the smoke better than his colleague. Dr. Wells needed to get out.

“ _I_ need to find her! Go!”

Dr. Wells started to protest, but the coughing overwhelmed him. He looked at Barry sympathetically, then rushed out of the lab.

Barry tried to think of where Caitlin was when the explosion went off. His mind was slowly rewinding the events before the fire. Cisco and Dr. Wells had been going through the ARGUS files on the main computer. Caitlin was there too… _until she left to call Felicity. Caitlin was in the other room._

The smoke seemed even thicker now; if there was still a lab left, he couldn’t see it. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled over to the doorway that connected the two rooms. He reached for the handle, but it stung him back. It was hot from the fire. He stood up, and rolled down his STAR Labs sweater so that it covered his hand. He quickly turned the handle and stumbled into the room.

There was fire everywhere.

He covered his mouth with his arm. It was far worse than the other room. Thoughts went flying through his head. _Was Caitlin okay? Was she even still alive? And how on earth was he going to find her?_

Then he heard it. A call for help. His heart lurched. _She was still alive_.

“Cait!”

He looked around frantically, but he still couldn’t see her. He made his way further into the room and yelled again.

“Cait?”

“Here!”

His head whipped in her direction. He made his way through the fire and over to her.

“Oh, God…”

The words escaped his mouth before he could stop them. She was pinned underneath a fallen beam, hacking uncontrollably. There was blood on her hands, on her clothes… he couldn’t think about that now. He reached underneath the beam and lifted it off of her. After all, lightning gave him abs.

He looked back at Caitlin.

She wasn’t coughing anymore.

“Cait?” The smoke was finally taking its toll. She was losing consciousness.

“Hey, hey…” His hand cupped her face, and she jolted awake at the contact.

“You gotta stay awake, okay? Please, Cait, please just stay awake.” She nodded, but her head still started to sag down.

He was going to get her out, even if he had to carry her. Even if he had to use super speed. If the lab had to burn to the ground to save her, so be it.

He scooped her up in his arms and turned towards the door. He took a couple steps, but he wasn’t running. He fell down on one knee. _Why couldn’t he run?_

The room was starting to spin. He felt his other knee fall down. _He had to keep going, he had to…_

His eyes fell shut and he tried to take a deep breath, but failed. His willed his eyes to open but they wouldn’t. He finally managed to open them, but only a crack. Enough to see a dark figure racing toward him. The weight on his arms was lifted, and then…

Nothing.

* * *

Barry’s eyes darted open the moment he heard the sirens. He felt something on his face and reached to get it off. A hand reached over his face and pressed it down.

“Sir, please lie still. You’re going to be okay.”

He followed the hand up to the paramedic that was treating him. She was stern, but kind. He took in his surroundings. He was on a stretcher outside the lab. The “thing” on his face was an oxygen mask.

She took her hand away, but he reached up to remove the mask anyway.

“Where’s Caitlin?” His voice sounded husky. He wasn’t used to the sound.

“The brunette? She’s gonna but just fine, thanks to you.”

“Where…?”

The paramedic pointed to the other ambulance. Caitlin was sitting on the bumper with a shock blanket wrapped around her. Barry sat up and put his feet on the ground. His legs started to give out underneath him. The paramedic caught him halfway down.

“You really shouldn’t…”

He waved her off.

“Alright, fine. See how far you make it without oxygen.”

She watched in silent disbelief as he managed to make his way over to Caitlin, gaining strength with each step he took. What the paramedic didn’t know was that he could heal in a flash.

Caitlin held an oxygen mask in her hand. She didn’t like masks, but she knew she needed it. She was periodically raising and lowering the mask until she could breathe on her own. She noticed something in her peripheral vision and looked up from the spot on the ground she had been staring at the last ten minutes.

A wave of relief washed over her. “Barry? I…”

Before she could finish her sentence, Barry wrapped his arms around her and half collapsed into her. Her hand went limp and the mask fell to the ground. He buried his head in the crook her neck. She could feel his breath down her back. He had her arms pinned, but she managed to wiggle them out and wrapped them around his waist.

After a minute, he finally managed to get some words out.

“Are you….?”

“I’m fine.”

“But all that blood…”

“I spilled a sample on me by accident.”

He took a deep breath, or as deep a breath that he could, before continuing.

“How’s Cisco?”

“He’s fine.”

“And Dr. Wells?”

“They’re both fine, Barry.”

She could feel his chest deflate as he breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? I… I don’t…”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get you out.” She could felt a tear hit her shoulder. She pushed him back so she could see his face.

“I… I tried to run, I tried… and I couldn’t, dang it Caitlin, I just couldn’t. I don’t know why, but…”

She cut him off. “Barry Allen,” she sighed, “You did. You did get me out. You may not have carried me out the front door, but you did _save_ me.”

She paused, piling up the evidence in her mind.

“ _You_ kept me awake long enough for the firemen to get us. _You_ lifted a beam off of my chest. _You_ knew that I was in the next room. _You came back for me_.”

She pulled him back into her.

And she wasn’t letting go anytime soon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I got the initial prompt, I knew it would be the perfect lead in for one of my favorite tropes, BSOD. I packed a bit more angst into this last part. Enjoy!

The four of them stood in the doorway of the lab, speechless at the task ahead of them.

Everything was some shade of grey… the computers were fried, the ceiling was half caved in, and the treadmill was split in two.

They had a lot of work ahead of them.

“We’ll have this fixed up in no time.” Cisco said as he patted Barry and Caitlin’s shoulders.

“Describe ‘no time.’”

Cisco shot an unamused look at Barry.

Barry defensively put his hands up. “Alright! No time at all…”

Dr. Wells, who was no longer wheelchair bound, made his way over to the work station and started clearing it off. He hadn’t said a word about the fire since yesterday. Barry was quite curious as to why he could suddenly walk. But how could he bring up the issue with some tact, without…

“So… when did you start walking, Doc?”

Cisco, however, had no problem worrying about tact.

Dr. Wells dropped what he was holding and turned around to face the three of them. They all had crossed arms.

“I never said I was paralyzed.”

He started to pace the room, as he started the rest of his speech.

“The explosion pinched a nerve in my back. The doctors told me there was a 1 in 10,000 chance that I would walk again. But those odds got a whole lot bigger when I discovered a new shock therapy.”

Caitlin’s jaw dropped. Clearly, she had heard of it.

“Over the past few months, I have slowly been regaining the use of my legs. And now…”

He patted his thigh.

“Just look.”

The trio just stared at him. _What could possibly follow that speech?_

“ _Cool_.”

Cisco, again, had a way of breaking the ice like no other. The team got back to work, deciding what to salvage and what to scrap. Barry accepted his explanation, for now. It all sounded rather prepared to him. But he was more worried about the lab.

And trying to hide that fact that his hand wouldn’t stop shaking.

* * *

It had been two weeks since the fire. They had managed to hook up the main computer to the backup generator in only two hours. The rest of the cleanup took much longer. The lab was finally starting to look normal again.

Barry decided to take some time off from his forensics job and helped the team rebuild STAR Labs. He only went on a couple missions during the two-week span; the city was relatively quiet for once. The tremors in his hand hadn’t stopped, but he had learned to control them better. They seemed to start at any time of day, no matter the situation. So far, it hadn’t affected his nighttime activities. He didn’t want to concern the team with it, not when they had lost their second home and were just now getting it back again. He could handle a little shaking on his own.

Suddenly, a ping came from the computer. Cisco went over to see what it was. There was a fire a few blocks down from them.

Barry immediately suited up and sped down to the scene. But a few houses before his destination, he stopped in his tracks.

This wasn’t a small fire. The whole house was engulfed in flames. He surveyed the scene: there was a father and a small child standing outside. They were looking back at the house. He didn’t have to imagine what it was like to watch a place he spent time in every day burn down; he lived it. He knew their pain. But he couldn’t stand watching it, unable to stop it. So, _why were they? Unless… they were waiting for someone._

Someone who was still trapped inside, and Barry was going to be the one to get them out.

He sped up to the burning building and took a step inside. Immediately, he found a woman trapped in the front hallway. He ran over to her, but when he reached her, he stopped. He could see the blood on her clothes. She looked just like…

Images of the lab burning filled his mind. Images of him getting his friends out… images of him stumbling through the fire… and images of him finding Caitlin.

And now, this woman was trapped just the same.

He tried to move, to use his speed, but nothing was working.

“Guys… I can’t speed!”

“What?” Caitlin spoke over the comms first. “What do you mean, you can’t speed?”

“My powers, they aren’t working.”

“Uhh, are you sure? Cause my screens are reading everything just fine here…” Barry could hear Cisco frantically clicking.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.” There was a little bit of sass in Barry’s voice. He was getting frustrated now.

“Okay, Barry, head back to the lab.” Dr. Wells took charge.

“But what about—“

“The firemen can handle this one, Barry.”

Barry’s heart sank. _What if she didn’t make it out? All because he couldn’t get his…_

At that moment, a fireman broke down the front door and told him to evacuate. He obliged, covering his mouth as he exited the building. He walked to the street and waited to make sure the pair made it out. He stood there, helpless.

Finally, the fireman came out the front door, with the woman in tow. She was leaning on him, but she was alright. Her family rushed to meet her. _She made it out._

With his mind at ease, he walked to the end of the street and hailed a cab. After a few tries, one finally pulled over. He got in the back seat.

“Where to, Spiderman?”

Barry looked down at his suit. He realized why it took him a few tries to get a cab.

“STAR Labs, please.”

* * *

Barry walked into the lab, head hanging. Caitlin rushed him, flashlight in hand. She shined it in his eyes, looking him over for any signs on injury. She pushed him over towards the lab table, which was just about the only surface that had been cleared off.

“Nausea, dizziness, headache?”

Barry shook his head.

She continued to look him over, but she found nothing.

“Well, it’s not physical.”

“Oh, no…” Barry realized what she was implying.

“He has the yips… again?!” Cisco beat him to it though. “Dude, you have got a messed up brain.”

Barry shrugged.

“So…” Cisco dragged his chair over to the table, turned it around, and straddled it. “What’s on your mind?”

Barry was not ready for Cisco to be his therapist. “Uhh…”

“And what qualifies you to be his therapist, exactly?” Caitlin took the argument for him.

“You know, the bro-connection.”

“Bro-connection?” She flinched, already not wanting to know the answer.

“Caitlin, when two men spend a lot of time together, they develop a psychic link, a bro-connection, if you will, that allow them to…”

She cut him off before he went any further.

“Yeah, that’s not…” She looked back at Barry, who looked rather suspicious. She noticed his rather straight posture and that his hands were behind his back. Barry never sat this proper. _He was hiding something._

“Barry, _show me your hands_.”

Barry winced at the wrath he was about to endure. He had been so careful; she hadn’t noticed in the last two weeks. If he had just kept it a secret a little while longer, it might have gone away. Now he was going to be poked and prodded more than he ever.

He pulled his hands out and slapped them on his knees. _Maybe she wouldn’t notice if he sat still._

She did.

“Barry…” She said it more like she was disappointed than angry.

She pulled his arm up so that is was in midair. She could visibly see it shaking. After a few moments, Barry snatched his hand back and looked away. He couldn’t look at her. He waited for the oncoming storm.

But there wasn’t one.

“I’m sorry.” She said it with such sadness. He looked up at her.

“Caitlin, there is nothing for you to be sorry for, if anything, _I_ should be…”

“I’m sorry you don’t trust me.”

Barry’s face dropped. “That wasn’t why… Of course I trust you, Cait. Of course…”

Barry was trying to protect her by keeping the secret, not hurt her. Cisco took the cue and went over to the other side of the room.

“… I trust you with my life. I _have_ trusted you with my life.”

Caitlin shook her head. “Then why didn’t you tell me about this? I could have helped you. I’m not just your doctor y’know. I thought we were friends.”

Barry took her hands in his. If he felt bad before, he felt even worse now. She could feel him still shaking beneath her.

“We _are_.”

“You can tell me _anything_ , you know that right?”

“ _Yes_.”

Barry started rubbing circles on her hands with his thumbs.

“Because if this is what I think it is, you need to be honest with me so I can help you.”

“I promise.”

She took a deep breath before continuing.

“Barry, I think you have PTSD.”

His hands dropped.

“What?” He just stared at her in disbelief.

“There’s nothing _physically_ wrong with you. It has to be psychological. I’m not an expert, but I think seeing us in that fire, it terrified you. More than you know. Our brains suppress traumatic events when they’re too much for us to handle. They just shut down. But those feelings, they still find a way out.”

Barry looked down at his hands. _That’s why his hands were shaking._

“…And when you saw that family’s home burning down today, it reminded you of the lab. The barrier your mind built came crashing down. That’s why you lost your powers.”

He looked back up at her as he took in the information. She was right. Of course she was, she was Caitlin.

“So, how do I fix it?”

“Well, it’s like an addiction. The first step is admitting it. Now that you know you have it, your brain should just…” A smile crept across her face. “Barry, look at your hands.”

He looked down at them. They had stopped shaking.

A wave of relief rushed over him. “You did it!”

He jumped up and wrapped his arms around her. She again, wiggled her arms out from underneath his bear hug and reciprocated.

Across the room, Cisco was fiddling with the door to the next room. The firemen had broken through it to get to Barry and Caitlin, and the lock was busted. He finally managed to get it lined up with the opening and was ready to test it. The door let out a loud creek as he swung it open.

Barry closed his eyes and felt his head hit the table. Images of the fire ran through his mind again. He stopped on one though. The one that terrified him the most. _Caitlin._

He startled awake, gasping for air and trying to sit up. He felt Caitlin’s hands stop him. “You’re having a seizure Barry, just relax.” Cisco held him down on the other side. She had managed to tip him backwards onto the table.

After a few breaths, he calmed himself down again. He felt like the air had been punched out of him. “What happened?”

“I was wrong.” He could hear that she was internally punishing herself. “It found another way out.”

“Why now?” Barry inquired.

“Sights, smells, sounds… they’re triggers. This whole place is a trigger. Cisco jiggling the door could’ve been a trigger. Right now, your brain is still reliving it. But seeing us in danger wasn’t what bothered you, it’s something else.”

Barry, now stable, propped himself up. He had a suspicion he knew what it was.

“Can’t I just suppress it again?”

“Sorry, that trick only works once.”

Barry knew two things for certain: _He had terrible timing_. Always had, always will. The second? _He was in love with Iris West_.

One of these things was now called into question. And it wasn’t the timing.

He had pined for Iris since he knew what love meant. She was the light of his life. The moon and the stars. _Everything_. And now, overnight, _he was suddenly in love with someone else?_

No. It wasn’t overnight.

He had been so clouded by feelings for Iris, he hadn’t seen it clearly until now. Caitlin was the one who helped him believe in himself after Blackout took away his powers. Caitlin was the one who had told him to stop meeting with Iris, who warned him it would only hurt them both in the end. Caitlin was the one who told him to be careful before every mission, who patched him up after every battle, who managed to put a smile on his face exactly when he needed it. Since the moment the day they met, he had been confiding in her.

Caitlin had always been his guide.

Looking back, he was surprised it had taken him so long to realize it. He liked Caitlin Snow. But that didn’t mean he was ready to tell her.

“Won’t it wear off eventually?” He was grasping at straws.

“No. And it’s going to keep happening until you face your real fear. In fact, it will probably get worse.”

He ran his fingers through his hair. _He had to at least try._ Admitting this, well, it was better than the alternative.

“Caitlin… I like you.”

She was caught off guard by the change of topic, but she went with it.

“I like you too.”

“No, Caitlin… I _like_ you.”

Their eyes locked. She saw the pleading look in his eyes and realized what he meant by like. Cisco got the hint to leave on his own this time.

“Oh.”

“And when I saw that woman in the fire, I didn’t think about Cisco or Dr. Wells… I thought about _you_. You are the one I couldn’t lose. When the Arrow,” he corrected himself, “when Oliver was here, he told me ‘guys like us don’t get the girl.’ At first, I thought it was Iris. But when I saw you in that fire, and you were trapped and covered in blood, I felt so _helpless_.”

He paused, knowing there was no turning back now.

“I have never been more terrified of losing someone than I was of losing you.”

A teardrop hit the floor. She didn’t realize she was crying until then. She couldn’t deny that the thought of Barry as more than a friend had crossed her mind. She thought it would pass, eventually. _It was just a crush_ , she kept telling herself. She was just looking for someone to replace the whole in her heart left by Ronnie, and Barry happened to be there. _It wasn’t real._ Besides, he was in love with Iris. _It would never work._ Week to week, bad guy after bad guy, she kept telling herself the same thing. _It’s never going to happen._

But after each week and after each bad guy, it was still there. She had only gotten better at pushing it down. Now, the man she had hopelessly been crushing on… no, the man she had been falling for, was telling her that she was the most important person in his life. _What could she possibly say?_

She realized the obvious: _nothing._

She put her right hand over his heart. In all her examinations, in all her testing and diagnosing, she had never felt it beat as fast as it was now. Barry reached up his hand and put it over hers. Step by step, they got closer and closer. Caitlin wrapped her other hand around the back of his neck. Barry reached up his other hand and brushed away the tear that escaped.

“I’m sorry, I can’t seem to stop crying.”

“I know. It’s okay.”

She took a deep breath, which steadied her a little. _C’mon Caitlin, you can do this_. She thought back to when Felicity had come to visit. She has this thing that she said that seemed to steady her whenever she was flustered. Maybe it would work for her, too…

_3… 2… 1…_

She leaned in, but stopped just short of his lips. She hovered there just a moment, making sure it was the right decision.

He closed the distance.

Their lips crashed into each other, pulling and pushing apart. The tension between them had gone on so long that when they finally had a chance to release it, they held nothing back. In this moment, they both realized that _this_ , whatever it was between them, was worth it. He could lose her tomorrow, but at least today was happier for both of them.

Cisco, who had been averting their gazes on the other side of the room, now spoke up. Or rather, coughed up.

“Ahem!”

Their lips parted as Caitlin pulled back.

“The lab isn’t going to clean up itself you know.” Cisco was going to steer clear of the topic entirely, to which Caitlin was extremely grateful for.

She turned around to face him. “Right.”

She turned back to Barry. “We’d better help him.”

He noticed she was blushing. It was a rare sight to see. He smiled at the fact that he was the one who made it happen. He covered with his usual comedic routine. “Do we _have_ to?”

She let out a chuckle. She looked down at Barry’s hands. They weren’t shaking anymore.

“No, but I’m terrified of what he will do to the lab without us.”

“Now _that_ is a terrifying thought.”


End file.
